Letters: Godalming effect

From
RUPERT GAREBOIE

On Godalming station on British Rail’s Network SouthEast there is a digital
clock. It has four faces. Each face has six numbers each made up of seven
electro-mechanical segments. The faces clank away at a 24-hour reading of
hours, minutes and seconds in perfect synchronism. Except that, for more
than two years now, on one of the faces, one of the numbers – the one giving
the minutes units – has insisted on displaying an ‘8’ whenever those on the
other three faces show a ‘0’. In every other respect the clock behaves
itself. The station staff insist that the maintenance engineers …